Chapter Text
The morning after Maester Cressen’s death, Stannis summoned the priestess to the Chamber of the Painted Table. The echoing footsteps of the page he’d sent after her had hardly died in the stairwell when she swept in, a swirl of red silk, as if she had been expecting his summons. She did not curtsy, but bowed her head, her lips curved in a faint smile. He gritted his teeth. It was his first time to speak with her alone.
“I want to know what your magic is good for,” he said. “Besides killing frail old men.”
“I did not kill him, Your Grace,” she said. “It was the maester who sought to kill me, and it was R’hllor who protected me.”
He knew that. It was Davos’s goblet that the maester had snatched up, and Davos had reported—with some reluctance, Stannis noted—that he had seen Cressen drop something into the wine before approaching the high table. Still, the sight of his old maester dying in agony at her feet had left a knot in Stannis’s stomach that had not gone away.
A miracle, some called it; dark magic, others whispered. Selyse had fallen to her knees, weeping and praising R’hllor. All Stannis knew was what he had seen with his own eyes: Cressen had swallowed a few drops and died in moments. The priestess had drained the goblet and still lived to speak with him now.
“Just tell me what I have to do to get this god of yours on my side.”
“R’hllor is on your side,” she said. “You need only trust yourself to him.”
“Trust myself to what you tell me, you mean.”
“I only convey his words as best I can.”
“So you say, but I’ve never known a god as talkative as you.” He realized as he said it that it sounded like something of an insult. His father had told him that one should always be courteous with women, but he had never learned the trick of it. “I get plenty of words from others. You’ll need more than that if you mean to be of any use to me.”
If the priestess took offense, she gave no sign. “There is powerful magic created by the joining of opposites,” she said. “Flint and steel struck together can light a great fire. A man and a woman together can light an even greater fire.”
Stannis opened his mouth, but his retort froze in his throat. What did she mean by that? In King’s Landing, he’d often heard the high septon speak of the getting of children as some great miracle, a gift from the gods—a commonplace sort of miracle, really, judging by the number of them running about the streets of Flea Bottom. Was that the magic she meant? Or something else? He stared at her, and she returned his gaze evenly.
“I have servants to light fires for me,” he said finally. “I have septas to prate at me about the blessed union of marriage. Are you a servant or a septa?”
“No, Your Grace,” she said, smiling. “I am the true god’s servant, and yours.”
Burning the Seven he understood. If he was meant to have sworn himself to some god, it would not do to keep the trappings of other gods. He’d never had much use for them anyway; and if people could pray at those blocks of wood they could pray just as well at the priestess’ fires.
The whole business with the burning sword, though... He felt half a fool carrying that thing across the beach. A burning sword was no more than a conjurer’s trick; he had learned that much watching Thoros of Myr get knocked down during Robert’s tourneys. Did she think to impress him with such “magic”?
“Such rituals as these are not for your benefit, Your Grace,” she said. “People follow signs and wonders, so it is necessary to show them signs and wonders.”
Not a servant or a septa, then, but a mummer putting on a show. Still, it had served its purpose.
At first he’d been hesitant to see her without Selyse present. Not that Selyse’s presence usually put him at ease, but at least it was a familiar sort of unease. Before long, however, he’d realized that it was easier to get something resembling a straight answer from the priestess without Selyse’s fervid interjections.
Of course it had not escaped his notice that the priestess was beautiful. Anyone could see as much. A man might notice that the grass beneath his feet was green and lush; that didn’t mean he felt inclined to eat it. Her beauty was an irrelevant detail, of no more use to him than the greenness of the grass, and he put it away with other irrelevant details, such as the scent of smoke and incense which lingered in a room after she left, and the infuriating way she had sometimes of smiling when she met his gaze, as if the two of them had shared some secret jest. Stannis was not a man for jests, and there were few who cared to share any with him.
One night he went to Selyse’s chambers. He could not say what drove him, and he almost turned right around to leave again at the sight of her bewildered expression greeting him—as if she could not even imagine what he, her husband, might be doing calling on her.
To be sure, his visit was out of turn. It had been their unspoken custom that he would come to her chambers on her name day and she would do the same on his. Her last name day had been less than two months prior, and his next one was not for four months yet. Two visits in two months was unusually bold.
Perhaps she thought that this unexpected attention was a sign of some new kindling of affection on his part. When they were done, instead of rolling over as she usually did and politely pretending to be asleep so he could leave, she attempted to make conversation.
“Melisandre says that with R’hllor’s blessing we may yet have a son.”
He did not want to talk of the priestess or think about her. He grunted something vague in response, rolled over, and did his best to look asleep. After a minute or two, Selyse did the same.
No miraculous power had revealed itself to them. Not that he had expected it. Not that it mattered. If there was any magic in such an act, he thought bitterly, then Robert must have been the greatest sorcerer the world has ever known.
He dreamed of his wedding night, of the awful tittering of the lady guests as they pulled his clothes off for the bedding. When he caught sight of Selyse she looked as ill at ease as he felt; at least they’d had that in common.
The corridor to the bedchamber seemed to go on forever. He knew the spectacle that waited for them at the end of it, and yet his feet could only go forward. Most of the torches had gone out, and it occurred to him after a while that the wedding guests and even Selyse had disappeared. He walked that endless dark passage alone, the walls curving around him like a cave.
Finally, he reached the end. He could hear rhythmic thumps and moans behind the heavy wooden door. It groaned loudly against the floor as he pushed it open to reveal the bedchamber and the bed and his brother.
Robert was young and clean-shaven, with thickly muscled limbs, as unabashed in his nakedness as a boar in the woods. When he looked round and saw Stannis in the doorway, his bellows of laughter shook the bedposts. Perhaps it was mirth that flushed his face red, or perhaps it was the wine, or his interrupted exertions. Certainly it was not embarrassment. Robert was the one naked in another’s bed, and yet he seemed to think that Stannis was the one worthy of ridicule.
The woman with Robert, pale and spread over the sheets like a wanton, was not Delena Florent. Her figure seemed to grow more solid and real, filling Stannis’s vision, even as Robert’s figure receded and grew dark and flat, although his guffaws continued to ring against the walls. She did not join in the laughter; but her red eyes met Stannis’s and her red lips curved and he knew that she knew—she understood that bitter jest as he did.
Your brother laughs at you, Melisandre’s smile said, but it is you, not he, who belongs here.
“Queen Selyse tells me you have renewed your efforts to conceive a son.”
The priestess’ smile rankled on him at the best of times; after his bizarre dream of the other night, it had become almost unbearable. He clenched his teeth so hard his head began to hurt. “Queen Selyse has no business discussing that with you.”
“The Lord of Light loves an honest heart, Your Grace. Your wife holds nothing back from me.”
“The Lord of Light seems happy enough to hold things back from me,” he said, glaring at her over the carved wooden expanse of the Stormlands. “You claim that going to Storm’s End will win me Renly’s army. How?”
“First you must meet with your brother. Speak with him, face to face.”
“I won’t find him at Storm’s End. He’s marching down the Rose Road to King’s Landing.” Though he might decide to turn east if he received word that the castle was besieged... “Why must I meet with him?”
“You must give him the chance to repent his sin and pledge himself to you.”
“You told me before that Renly would die. Now you say that Renly will bend the knee and join his forces to mine?”
“I did not say that, Your Grace; only that you must give him the chance.”
“He’s had his chance. Playing at being king is more important to him than doing his duty by his brother. Why should I dignify a traitor like that with an audience?”
“You will need his army to take your throne.”
“I don’t need your counsel on battle strategy.” He turned back to the table, as if it would tell him anything new. “I am well aware that I don’t have the men to take King’s Landing or to hold it. Your magic was supposed to be my path to victory, or so you claimed.”
Her hand brushed his shoulder lightly; he felt the warmth of it through layers of wool and leather. He flinched away as if he’d been burned. Seeing her sympathetic smile, he immediately cursed himself for a fool.
“The path to victory has been prepared for you,” she said gently. “I have seen it. You need only follow it to Storm’s End.”
He turned away from her again. His heart was pounding. Why was he so startled by a little touch? Had she ever touched him before? Of course not; why would she?
“Your brother has not seen you since you took up your crown,” she went on. For a moment he thought she was going to touch him again, but she only rested her hand on the table.
“I haven’t changed,” Stannis said. “And neither has he.”
“You have changed. You have come to know R’hllor’s power.”
He thought of Maester Cressen writhing on the floor of the great hall, and grimaced. “If I show Renly that burnt-up tourney sword, he might be good enough to laugh himself to death. But I doubt he would do me such a favor.”
Melisandre spoke quietly to his squire Devan, who darted out and returned with a long bundle wrapped in oiled leather.
Stannis laid it on the table and undid the wrapping. The sword shone as if it reflected a noonday sun, though they were indoors. The air shimmered around it as if it were hot off the forge. For a moment he imagined that it must be too hot to touch, but when he placed his hand on the hilt it was cool. He glanced at Melisandre; her faint smile was unreadable. Another conjurer’s trick, he thought... but not one he had ever seen the like of before.
He grasped the sword firmly and held it before him. It had decent heft and balance, but not exactly Valyrian forged. Nothing about it seemed out of the ordinary... except for that uncanny light.
If nothing else, it should impress Renly, he thought grimly. He’s always loved shiny things.
If Renly was impressed by the magic sword, it was not sufficient to turn him back from his folly.
At their farce of a parley, Ned Stark’s widow had chided them as if they were her children. But Renly was a man grown, who seemed to gleam with pride at his bald-faced treason. Stannis fumed all the way back to camp. Melisandre rode beside him in silence.
As soon as they arrived, he immediately summoned his lords, knights, and sellsword captains to his pavillion for a war council. Melisandre remained unusually silent throughout. Once, during a lull in the discussion, Ser Justin ventured to ask her if she saw victory for them in the flames. “Do not lose heart; R’hllor is with us,” was her only reply. She excused herself at dusk to light the nightfire, and returned shortly after.
They went on late into the night. Squires brought in food and tallow candles to light the tent. Finally Stannis dismissed them all, and they filed out. He dismissed his squires as well. Devan, the most trustworthy, was given a stern order to wake him an hour before dawn. Not that he had much hope of sleep.
They could sit and discuss strategy until winter came and melted into spring. It would not change the fact that they were outnumbered five to one, and they did not have enough horse to outflank twenty thousand riders. His only hope was the fact that Renly had never seen a real battle in his life and thought of tourneys as occasions to buy fancy new armor. Still, with numbers like that it would be difficult for even Renly to blunder so badly as to allow Stannis to win. Many of Renly’s knights were green fools like himself, but he did have experienced commanders like Randyll Tarly on his side. And he still had a hundred thousand at Bitterbridge, waiting to march...
As Stannis stood frowning at the strewn-about battle plans, he became aware that he was not alone. Melisandre had remained even as the others left. He was not at all surprised that she should be so presumptuous.
“You must not give yourself to despair,” she said. “Despair is a weapon of the enemy. You are the lord’s champion.”
“Unless R’hllor can protect us from swords and pikes as easily as he protected you from poison, he may have to find himself a new champion soon.”
“I have told you, Your Grace. Renly will die. His army is rightfully yours, and will be yours.”
Stannis snorted. “Renly will die, Renly will repent his treason, now Renly will die again. It seems to me your predictions change with the wind.” Removing his gloves, he went and stood by the brazier. His departing knights had let a draft of chill night air into the pavillion. “Does your god plan to reach out and strike Renly dead in the midst of all his men? That would be something indeed.”
In truth, he was not angry with Melisandre. Perhaps he should have been; if her grand promises did turn out to be so much wind, then he would likely be riding to his death on the morrow. But he would have had to face his brother sooner or later, and Renly’s treason was not her doing. More than anything else, he was weary.
Suddenly Melisandre was at his side. The glow from the brazier set her eyes aflame. “If you could strike him down,” she said, “would you?”
“I wouldn’t be riding into battle against him tomorrow if not,” he said. He could feel the warmth of her through his clothes, warmer even than the fire. She was standing too close.
“There are many men on a battlefield,” she said. “One who commands an army may slay thousands without ever staining his hands with blood.”
“Been in a lot of battles, have you?”
She smiled at that. Gently, she laid a hand on his arm. He willed himself not to flinch like before.
“What if it were not a battlefield with thousands of men?” she said. “What if you faced Renly alone?”
“Are you suggesting that I challenge him to single combat?” he said, incredulous. “Renly may be a prancing fool, but he would have sense enough never to accept that.”
“I am asking you, Your Grace, if you would kill your brother.” She closed his right hand between two of hers and raised it before him, pointing it as if she were guiding a sword thrust through her own breast. “If you faced him, sword in hand,” she said, “could you take that sword and run him through?”
He thought of that moment during the parley when Renly had reached beneath the folds of his cloak. Stannis had reached for his sword without thinking, and had left his hand on the hilt even as Renly smiled and pulled out a peach. One should never refuse to taste a peach, Stannis.
“I could,” Stannis said. “I would. He’s a traitor, and a traitor’s reward is death.”
Slowly, agonizingly, she lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed her burning lips to his fingers, his palm, the inside of his wrist. It seared him like a hot brand. He had to make her stop. Wrenching his arm out of her grip, he seized her roughly by the shoulders and kissed her.
Understanding bloomed in him then, like some monstrous flower. As he pulled her against him, he saw clearly for the first time the feeling that had gnawed at his edges all these months whenever he was in her presence, and it appalled him. He would end this now, send her away—out of his tent, out of his life, as far away as possible. He would tell no one, and in the morning he would ride to battle, to defeat, to death. No one would ever know. He would send her away as soon as he could speak.
Having resolved as much, he found it increasingly daunting to break the kiss and let go of her. Knowing that this one moment of indiscretion was the end of it, the only taste of her he would ever get, some part of him was desperate to draw it out as long as possible. Her slender arms around his neck could have been bands of iron for all that he was capable of disentangling himself from them.
Finally, he managed to drag his lips away from hers, though he still could not let go of her. If he let go, he felt certain that his knees would buckle and give way. “Get out,” he gasped against her ear, mortified at how weak it sounded.
“My king,” she breathed, clinging tightly to him. “I dare not leave you alone for this battle.”
“Battle?” His mind was reeling. “The battle is at dawn.”
“That battle will never come to pass. I promise you. Renly will die first.”
“You’ve made a lot of promises.” He let his arms fall to his sides, but a moment later they had wrapped themselves about her waist.
“You must trust me,” she said.
Various retorts fluttered through his mind like a startled flock of birds. I burned the sept and the godswood. I took what little army I had and laid siege to an impregnable fortress. Is that not far enough to trust you? What more would you have me do? But he feared the answer. “I don’t know,” he said finally, stupidly. “I don’t know.”
“Let me prove it to you.” There was an urgency in her tone he had not heard before.
It was too bright, far too bright. The tent was flooded with the glow from dozens of candles and the flames leaping high in the brazier. He could see Melisandre clearly, every inch of her, as her red robes pooled on the dusty floor. Selyse always extinguished every lamp in her chambers before they could begin to disrobe; he was never sure if this was meant for her benefit or his. But what he did now seemed as different from what he did with Selyse as day from night.